


Mascarade

by UEvangeline



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Art, Costume Parties & Masquerades, F/M, Museums, Paris (City), Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 17:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UEvangeline/pseuds/UEvangeline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No other woman would ever get him into a train without him knowing their destination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mascarade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Greens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greens/gifts).



> Song "Young and Beautiful", by Lana del Rey. I hope you can enjoy this story, Greens! (:

“Where are we going?” Sherlock asked, looking with caution at the playful smirk on her pinkish lips.  
“Well, you are the detective, you tell me where we are going.”  
He took a deep breath, considering his surroundings. The train they were in was rather luxurious, so it couldn’t be headed just anywhere. It had food service, meaning it would take more than one hour or so. More importantly, there were people speaking French just behind them.  
“We are not going to Paris.” He said, staring at her as if she was completely out of her mind. “I do have to work in the morning, you know.”  
“Well, they can handle a day or two without you, can’t they?”  
“Irene.” he said, very serious.  
“Sherlock.” she returned the look, staring right into his eyes, her face mockingly serious.  
“You are impossible, I hope you know that.”  
“Why, thank you! I am really glad you are enjoying yourself this much.”  
Sighing, he just let his weight fall into the cushioned chair. She was indeed impossible, but it only made her even more irresistible to him. No other woman would ever get him into a train without him knowing their destination.  
“And what will we be doing in Paris, if I might ask?”  
She smiled sweetly at him.  
“I want to go see Degas’ ballet dancers. They are so beautiful, I miss seeing the real paintings, plus I am searching for a bit of inspiration.”  
“Are you finally making an original?”  
“We will see about that.”  
She moved to sit beside him, letting her head rest on his shoulders. Sherlock smiled, contently. It was amazing how much she had grown inside of him. He loved her, he really loved her. And how could he not? She was intelligent, beautiful, spontaneous, sensitive. He would never get tired of her.  
And _that_ was something quite new for him.  
He let the minutes pass by, as she peacefully slept on his shoulder. He let her be until they got quite close to Gard du Nord.  
“Your Degas awaits you.” he said, and she chuckled.  
From this point on, time seemed to fly, as much as both deeply desired for that day to last forever. Degas, Da Vinci, Van Gogh, they saw it all and more, everything and anything Paris had to offer. Sherlock had wanted to spend some more time on the bookshops, but Irene didn’t let him, dragging him from museum to museum, then art galleries, and then the independent painters beside the Seine.  
“This trip is all about the visual arts. Forget literature, it does not exist today.”  
Sherlock just watched as her bright eyes seemed to sparkle at every new painting. She spent hours just on Degas’ Two Dancers on a Stage and The Star. Those green eyes captured everything, even the most imperceptible of brushes, even colours that were mixed with others. And she loved art with a passion unknown to him. No wonder she decided to forge works of art so the originals wouldn’t be corrupted. If she was ever discovered, she was definitely going to prison for it, but Sherlock was sure she didn’t mind it at all. She would gladly let herself be imprisoned, if it were for the benefit of the paintings.  
Dusk found them in front of a beautiful antique hotel, where the lights were being turned on and an orchestra began to play a waltz. A poster outside exhibited in elegant maroon letters: Mascarade ce soir - Masquerade tonight.  
Sherlock wouldn’t have looked at it twice, but Irene ran to it, opening a big smile.  
“Let’s go in!”  
“We do not possess the appropriate clothes, or masks.”  
She shot a bored look at him.  
“And that would have stopped you before?”  
Pulling him by the hand, Irene entered the first costume store they found open, asking for anything they might have so the two of them could attend the ball. When they were finally out, they looked like Anne Boleyn and king Henry VIII in masks.  
Irene chuckled as she pulled Sherlock back to the ball, watching him closely. She knew very well he found her fascinating exactly because everything she did was a surprise to him. She liked the fact she could amaze him, doing what he would never expect. For her, every experience should be unique - just like a work of art. The memories she enjoyed the most were those that she revisited several times, but always looking at different aspects, inexhaustible, just like Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.  
And tonight she wanted to dance with him! Masquerades were beautiful because they had that typical air about them, an air of mysteries unsolved, magical rituals, unnoticed homicides. Even if they knew each other, it didn’t matter. Under the masks they were strangers, they didn’t have to think about their history together, about their pasts. With those masks on, he was just a man and she was just a woman. No more complications.  
“Would you give me the pleasure of this dance, my lord?” She asked playfully, curtseying.  
“Well, why not.” He just answered, smiling at her.  
Sherlock never thought of himself as one to dance, but he was definitely the kind of man that welcomed new experiences, no matter what they were. That was how he started reading as a child, and how he started using heroin as a young man. And that was how he was about to dance with Irene, looking at her through the silken mask.  
The first two hours of the masquerade were solely dedicated to waltzes. But as the clock was getting closer to midnight, electronic sound began, and soon all kinds of modern music could be heard. Sherlock had to admit he preferred the waltz, but Irene seemed to be enjoying herself just the same.  
When the soft sound of a slow song reached his ears, Sherlock brought her closer to him, staring intently at the eyes he could barely see under her dark blue velvet mask. The deep voice on the stereo sang painfully sweet.

_Hot summer nights, mid July_   
_When you and I were forever wild_   
_The crazy days, the city lights_   
_The way you’d play with me like a child_

He dived into her, as she closed her eyes and let her forehead rest on his shoulder. He could feel all of her against him under the endless layers of the pre-elizabethan dress. He couldn’t really recall a time when he felt so much for just one woman. Could any other even compare to her? He wondered. If he was to lose her... He would never feel that way about anyone else.

_Will you still love me_   
_When I’m no longer young and beautiful?_   
_Will you still love me_   
_When I’ve got nothing but my aching soul?_   
_I know you will, I know you will_   
_I know that you will_   
_Will you still love when I’m no longer beautiful?_

But he definitely was not planning to lose her any time soon, or never. Freeing her hair from the hairpin, he let the blond locks fall into her shoulders and his hands. He loved to feel those velvety curls on his hands, grabbing a handful of them and pulling her to him. But not tonight. Tonight he would just cherish her.  
“Sherlock.” Her voice met his ear softly.  
“Yes?”  
“Do you love me? Because I think I do.”

_Hot summer days, rock n’ roll_   
_The way you played for me at you show_   
_And I all the ways I’ got to know_   
_Your pretty face and electric soul_

He smiled tenderly at her. Finally. Of course he knew he loved her, but he had to wait, or she would just run away from him, like the wild artistic spirit he knew her to be.  
“Of course I love you.”

_Will you still love me_   
_When I’m no longer young and beautiful?_   
_Will you still love me_   
_When I’ve got nothing but my aching soul?_   
_I know you will, I know you will_   
_I know that you will_   
_Will you still love when I’m no longer beautiful?_

She smiled back to him and kissed his lips, demanding everything out of him with just that single kiss. And he gladly consented.

 

* * *

  

“Sherlock!” Joan  angrily shut down the radio. “Sherlock, are you listening to me? I’ve been trying to talk to you here, you know?”

But inside his head, only the final lines of the song played on.

_Will you still love me_   
_When I’m no longer young and beautiful?_   
_Will you still love me_   
_When I’m not young and beautiful?_


End file.
